(1) Entries must be
received by 10pm (GMT) on Saturday 15th August 2015. (2)UK
residents only (sorry – this is because of legal rules regarding giveaways) and
must be over 16.(3)The winner will
be chosen at random and informed within 7 days of the closing date.
(4)The winner will need to respond within
7 days. (5) The book cannot be
exchanged or transferred – no cash alternative (6) The judges’ decision is
final and no correspondence will be entered into.

To celebrate the launch of Dark Place to Hide some fabulous authors have offered their novels for FREE from this blog. Coming up soon is: C.L. Taylor, Kathryn Croft, Luana Lewis, Nuala
Casey and Mel Sherratt - so
come back and take a look...

GIVEAWAY #2 (deadline 15th August)

Today's Bestselling Author Giveaway is Broken by Daniel Clay. I loved this book and it was made into a brilliant film, too. Daniel is hosting me on my blog tour and has generously offered a free paperback to a winner selected at random. All you have to do is either:

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Today, there's also the first of the Bestselling Author Giveaways (see below).

What's on the Blog Tour?

There are some great interviews and posts lined up on my Blog Tour where I’ll be talking
about the world of publishing, the inspiration behind the story, plus there will be reviews of the book. The bloggers, including bestselling authors themselves, have asked some
fascinating questions, and I'd love it if you could spare the time
to join me at some of the tour stops. Every post is different!

Today's Bestselling Author Giveaway is Before it's Too late by Jane Isaac, bestselling author of The Truth Will Out. Jane has generously offered a free paperback to a winner selected at random. All you have to do is either:

(1) Entries must be
received by 10pm (GMT) on Saturday August 15th 2015. (2)UK
residents only (sorry – this is because of legal rules regarding giveaways) and
must be over 16.(3)The winner will
be chosen at random and informed within 7 days of the closing date.
(4)The winner will need to respond within
7 days. (5) The book cannot be
exchanged or transferred – no cash alternative (6) The judges’ decision is
final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Friday, 24 July 2015

Getting a book ready for sale is, I’ve discovered, both a terrific adventure and a massive
undertaking. I’ve had to take on so many jobs – not only as the author of the
novel, but formatter, proofreader, layout-checker,
publicist, project manager, marketing manager and more. I’ve written features, done
interviews, answered Q&As, set up a ten-stop
blog tour, designed a ‘blog tour poster’, organised giveaways and competitions (pestered lovely authors for
their free books), set up advance blog posts, newsletter posts, posted live to
Twitter, Facebook, G+, Goodreads and Pinterest... *comes up for air*...

...and...I’ve been totally wired –
very excited, very stressed – especially trying to manage the timing for
everything (with a holiday abroad booked right in the middle).

Which takes me neatly to ‘the order’ of things. My first two books were traditionally published in France and Germany and my previous agent set them up on Amazon
through the White Glove programme, so I hadn't done it 'direct to Amazon' before. I didn’t know how long things would take
and what had to be done first. Take the print book, for example – you need an
ISBN (unique book number) before you can set up your copyright page and you
need the exact number of pages (using the CreateSpace template), before your
cover designer can work out the size of the spine. I’ve learnt odd little bits
of detail on the way, such as cream pages are thicker than white, apparently,
and certain (standard, in my view) book sizes are not permitted for expanded
distribution. (What’s ‘expanded distribution’? you may ask – I tell you, the
world of Amazon publishing will take your mind into realms it has never dreamt
of!)

My first job was to find documentation about ‘how to set up
print and ebooks on Amazon’ from start to finish – (preferably ‘step-by-step
for absolute beginners’). One book was particularly helpful,Self-Printed (3rd Ed.): The Sane Person's Guide to
Self-Publishingby Catherine Ryan
Howard. There’s also lots of helpful
information on Rachel Abbott’swebsite and blog. I worked out a timeline and
ended up with about eleven A4 pages of ‘tasks’ – what to do, when. The manuscript
had already been structurally edited through my agent, so I had to hire a
copy-editor, proofreaders (two, for different stages), a cover designer and an
ebook converter (see below).

Copyright and dedication pages

The print book requires those extra pages we all take for
granted, like the title page, copyright, dedication, author biography, ‘also
by the author’ and ‘coming soon’ pages – some at the front, some at the back. I also needed a ‘blank’ page to make sure my book started on a right hand page. The
word document has to be set up on the CreateSpace template and for some reason, mine seemed to
shift lines around (it took a great dislike to certain indents too).

There were some tricky moments, such as choosing
the right font (book text is a lot smaller than I imagined), how to get the
pages to start at ‘Chapter 1’ and not at the extra pages, and lowering text at
the same height for chapter headings. Also, the margins have a different size
depending on whether they are the left/right hand page – and there are those
‘widows’ and ‘orphans’… (another learning curve - I’ve been expanding and
condensing character spacing in my sleep!).

The eBook, however, was more
complicated. I never got to grips with how to format this – something about taking
out all the existing formatting, removing tabs and replacing them with
‘line-indents’ and re-inserting different ‘styles’… My head nearly exploded
trying to sort this out, so I handed the manuscript over to a company that
formats and converts files to ebooks, to save myself the nightmare. It still
wasn’t straightforward. The first version came back looking like there were
spaces between every sentence and the text wasn’t justified on the right… I
thought these were basic ebook standards, but you have to spell everything out,
exactly as you want it. In that state, it was unreadable and I had to send it
back – taking more time. When it came back looking like an ebook, I suddenly
saw more of my own blinking mistakes!! Punctuation mostly – or repeated words, clunky
sentences or continuity issues where I’d fixed a passage, but had created fresh
issues in the correcting… Back and forward it went, until I dared to say it was
‘final’. I now had both versions ready to upload. Phew!

But the worst was yet to come.

The scariest bit was at the end. I wanted to set up the
ebook for pre-order: on pre-order from 9 July for release on 30 July. Simple. On
3 July, I set it up expecting there to be boxes to tick for these two key dates.
Did I want to publish straight away –
No. Did I want to pre-order? Yes. I
punched the date in for pre-order as 9 July and WHAM! – Big mistake. Here came a cheery message saying that my book was already available on Amazon and would
be published on the 9th. No,
No, No – I’ve got three weeks of
advance publicity to create that magical buzz, all geared up to the big launch on
July 30th…

To be fair, Kindle Direct Publishing were brilliant. They
answered my queries within 24 hours and they guided me through the process so I
could set up the correct dates – plus I won’t forfeit pre-orders for a year
(the usual penalty for messing up). There was a similar dilemma with the print
book – by uploading it, you set it up 'there and then' – there’s no way (I could find) to set it
up for a time in the future (I knew there was no pre-order for the paperback).
So I had to work around this by disabling the sales channels – I have to reset
them around 3-5 days before my launch to get it live in time – and the timing
will be a bit hit and miss.

So now both versions are ‘ready’ and I have three weeks of
letting people know about the book in an ‘informative and compelling way’
without annoying them! I’m not very good at this bit… I’m a hardened introvert
and find it difficult to be ‘chatty and engaging’ online, but I will try my
best. I have a blog tour set up from 30 July to 11 August with a fabulous bunch
of supportive bloggers/authors and I hope the bestselling book giveaways, from 28 July on my blog, will
appeal. You can also enter for the Goodreads Giveawayhere until July 25th - for a free paperback!

Most importantly, I’ve kept a record of the process, because
in about six months’ time - *takes big breath* - I’ll be doing it all again for
my next release, No Longer Safe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bestselling Author Giveaways start on this blog from July 28, with FREE books offered from acclaimed authors: Kathryn Croft, Mel Sherratt, Nuala Casey, Luana Lewis, Jane Isaac, Daniel Clay and a signed copy of The Lie by CL Taylor - all up for grabs!

My new Psychological Mystery,DARK PLACE TO HIDE, is due for release on
Amazon on 30th July – just nine days away. So here’s a sneak preview
of the Opening Chapter...

Dark Place to Hide by AJ Waines Chapter 1

Harper - 25 July

A handful of words – that’s all it takes. He lays them out for me, leaning
forward man to man, his palms on his knees. His tone is pacifying as if he
thinks I’ve guessed; as if by now I must have worked it out.

‘Your wife’s had a miscarriage,’ he says.

The doctor’s words force my spine into the back of the seat, crushing me. I
am being shunted further and further back, watching the floating faces of the
two nurses beside him trying to reach me, their expressions creased with
sympathy. Those words in themselves are ripe with disarray. A baby. It’s a
complete shock. I didn’t know.

But there’s more.

There’s a moment first, when I think of what this means to you. The child
you’ve been waiting for, hoping for, longing for – we both have. You must be
torn apart.
The doctor straightens up. He’s delivered the bad news and, for the medical
team, it is cut and dry. Shock, distress, sadness – that will be my onward
journey in their eyes; hard, but inevitable. But they are wrong.

What he has told me doesn’t make sense.
How can you be having a miscarriage?
You can’t possibly be pregnant.*

I can’t remember the correct order of events after that. They said I could
see you, Diane, but I must have stalled because the next minute I’m wandering
off towards an open window by the stairwell with a plastic cup of water in my
hand. One of the nurses must have handed it to me. She must have thought I
needed time to prepare myself to face your grief, a period of quiet to find the
right words of solace and comfort for you. But instead, a loud voice inside me
is yelling, How can this have happened?

Blood is pumping hard and fast into my temples, my neck, my chest and I hate
myself for letting this question fog my brain when you’ve been rushed in here
in pain, in panic. Of course, I was frantic when I got the call. I nearly
sprained my ankle racing up the stairs to get to you, distraught and almost out
of my mind. They said you had been found at the side of the road in a pool of
blood; you were in intensive care and my mind was racing. I thought at first
you’d been struck by a car or attacked in a secluded lane. I thought I’d lost
you and I’d find a white sheet covering your face.
One emotional state, however, is now shaking down all the others and rising
to the top. It is no longer panic or desperation, but confusion. It is starting
to look like you have hidden a massive transgression from me; one that could
shatter a marriage in the blink of an eye.

She must have mistaken my sigh for a sign that I’m impatient to see you. In
fact, I need more time. I let her guide me, like a marionette, through two sets
of double doors towards your bed. I find myself hiding my shaking hands from
her as if I’m afraid she’ll think I’m not man enough for you.
My eyes stumble on your face; worn and framed with sticky clumps of hair.
You’ve been through a fight. My spirit dissolves at your vulnerability. I grab
your hand.

‘I’m okay,’ you say, saving me from having to ask.

The nurse steps forward holding a clipboard. ‘Your wife collapsed. She was
on the verge of a haemorrhage, Dr Penn – it was touch and go there, for a
while.’

You shake your head a little as if it was nothing; it’s so like you to play
down your own misfortunes.
‘I didn’t know,’ you whisper. I can see no trace of remorse or guilt and I
reproach myself for looking for it; I should be resoundingly and solely
grateful that you are alive, able to recognise me, form sentences. Still, I
probe your dewy eyes for signs, but there aren’t any. You catch my frown. You
think I’m perturbed because you hadn’t told me.

‘I’m so sorry, Harper,’ you whimper.

I sit beside you. It was only a few hours since we’d laughed at breakfast;
you dropping your buttered toast and catching it between your knees. You’ve
always been quick like that – co-ordinated and sporty, like your sister. Now
you look gaunt and pale – a different person.

‘How are you feeling? Are you in pain?’

You rub your belly and wince. ‘I had to have a D&C – it’s fading now. I
have to stay here for a couple of days, they said.’

‘What happened?’ I mean the bigger question, the series of events, sweeping
all my accumulated uncertainties into one giant enquiry, but you hear only one
strand of it.

‘We got pregnant,’ you say, ‘and I didn’t even know.’ Your face buckles at
this moment of recognition. We got pregnant.

I thumb the tears gently away from your eyes, trying to ease away the pain.
Wishing I could bear it for you.

‘How many weeks?’

‘Only seven…’ You look down at my hand, holding on.

Seven weeks ago. My mind scatters as I try to pin the date into the calendar
in my head. It would have been early June. We’d been in London the weekend of
the 31st May and we’d made love – that much was true. I remember it, because I
haven’t been able to function in that department as often as I’d have liked.
Nevertheless…

‘I’m sorry,’ you say, again, your eyes struggling to focus.

For what, exactly? My male pride is bursting to ask, but now isn’t the time.
You are my wife, hurting, suffering and in disbelief. I need to put a hold on
my questions and be here for you. You need my support. There’s been a baby –
the one thing we’ve been waiting for; the dream, the rapture that would have
made everything complete. And you have lost it. Your body has rejected it.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I say, kissing your limp fingers. All your movements
are in slow motion and you can barely string two words together. I know you’re
playing it down; the physical pain, the distress – being brave for my benefit.
I can’t confront you with the rest of it – not now.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ you whisper. ‘Just hold me.’ I scoop you into me
and feel your feverish sweat roll against my cheek. We’ll have to talk about it
later. The answers are all there, I just have to wait. Then the truth will be
laid out, not only for me, but also for you. As it happens, I have my own
secret to share. I have my own concealment to lay bare.

Friday, 17 July 2015

In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her
only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to
start afresh.

Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on
the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her
memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her
future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences
will be devastating . . .

This is an expertly constructed psychological thriller where all the
complex threads are drawn together cleanly and cleverly at the end. A
key question is presented to the reader at the start: If you'd knocked down a child, under what circumstances would you not stop to help or own up?

From the outset and with a
‘sleight of hand’, the reader is led to believe certain aspects of the
story (some readers have suggested the author deliberately leads the
reader up the wrong path - and this is true to some extent). The
narrator sounds reliable, but is missing out huge chunks of information!

The first part of the novel is a slow burn with questions
surrounding Jenna, who moves to a remote holiday location to
rebuild her life after the death of her son. Alongside this runs the
police investigation of a hit and run, which through lack of witnesses and evidence, doesn't get off the ground
until later, but has a compelling interplay between the well-meaning detectives. For
the first part of the book, the title appears to refer to what we know
at the opening - then in Part II, we realise it means something entirely
different - very devious!

Everything is turned upside down at
the start of Part II, around half-way, where a new first person
narrative cranks up the tension and we become aware of what Jenna is
really up against - and the police investigation starts to make progress.
There's another twist at the end and plenty of jeopardy making the
second half a genuine page-turner. Highly recommended as a very polished
debut novel!

Friday, 10 July 2015

Last week we had the cover reveal
– now it’s time to show you the jacket blurb.

Don’t forget – it’s out in ebook and paperback on 30th
July!
Ebook available now to pre-orderHERE!

Jacket Blurb

She’s trying
to tell you – if only you’d listen…

About to
break the news to his wife, Diane, that he’s infertile, criminology expert,
Harper Penn, gets a call to say she’s been rushed to hospital with a
miscarriage. Five days later, when Diane fails to return from the village shop,
police think she must have taken off with a secret lover, but Harper is
convinced the online messages are not from her.

In the same
Hampshire village, plucky seven-year-old Clara has retreated into a
make-believe world after an accident. Then she, too, goes missing.

As Harper sets out on a desperate quest to find them both, he has no
idea what he’s up against. Could the threat be closer than he thinks? And is
there a hidden message in Clara’s fairy tales?

DARK PLACE TO HIDE is a chilling psychological mystery with a
cold-blooded deviant lurking at the core.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Author, Sara Atkins in Conversation
with AJ Waines about her third
novel, Dark Place to Hide.

Where did
the inspiration for Dark Place to Hide come from?

When I was starting to plot the novel, I’d just
read a wonderful book by Claire King, The
Night Rainbow, about a young child struggling to grow up when
no one takes much notice of her. In Dark
Place to Hide, I wanted to involve a child in different
circumstances. For my sub-plot, I chose a plucky seven-year-old tomboy, Clara, who
retreats into the world of fairy-tales – and no one is sure why. Then she
disappears.

After that, I needed to consider my main plot.
Like my two earlier books, I wanted two deep mysteries running through
seemingly unrelated stories. Most psychological thrillers have a female in the
central role, but instead I wanted a male to narrate the story, so we can see
heartbreak and vulnerability from his point of view. So centre stage comes criminologist,
Harper Penn, who is devoted to his wife in a relationship that seems rock-solid.
Except he has a secret. Then something devastating happens that makes him
question everything – and his wife disappears. Harper has to try to piece
everything together – desperate to find those who are missing - while the clock
is ticking…

Secrets play
a large role in Dark Place to Hide. Under what circumstances is keeping a
secret acceptable?

I love
secrets; most of us are hiding something, whether it’s as simple as a bad habit
or as serious as a crime. As a psychotherapist, I was privileged to see
inside the private worlds of many of my clients and was fascinated by the kinds
of secrets people keep for years. It all comes down to motive. Are you keeping
a secret because you want to protect someone else, or yourself? Is it shameful?
Has it evolved into a lie? In Dark Place to Hide an initial secret leads to questions
about trust, fidelity and betrayal.

Did you enjoy
writing about the seven-year-old girl, Clara?

Clara’s
voice came to me very early and I could picture her with long blonde hair, wearing
an alice band and a cheeky grin. She was a delight to write about and came fairly
fully formed into my mind – a little girl who loves freedom and draws sandals
on her feet, so she doesn’t have to wear them. I used my therapy background to
explore the ways in which children react to trauma and found a way for her to
retreat into a particular fairy-tale to escape her fears. I love the way there
are hints in her conversations about what is really going on for her – but no
one is paying any attention – they are so used to her being ‘away with the
fairies’. Eventually, Harper realises the significance and starts to pick up
the clues.

Harper’s
wife goes missing very early in the story, so how did you manage to bring her
to life in the narrative, so that we care about her?

Diane has a ‘presence’
throughout the story and I decided to use first and second person narrative for
Harper, so that right at the start, he’s addressing Diane – as ‘you’. When she
goes missing, he recalls their life together, their move from London to a small
village in Hampshire, the special, loveable details about her. In this way, we
get to see a picture of Diane through his eyes, but also of Harper’s feelings
for her as they bend and shift when, over time, facts about her disappearance emerge.
There are also scenes which flash back to the past featuring Diane, so we get a
sense of who she is without Harper’s rose-tinted glasses. Then, about half way
through, something unexpected happens involving Diane, in terms of the structure
of the novel – but I can’t give this away!

You started
getting books published quite late in life? Did you always want to be a writer?

I think on
one very subliminal level, I did. An editor friend of mine reminded me that I
used to fill exercise books with Enid Blyton-style stories when I was about
nine or ten. Most of my early years, however, were focused on music; I started
the piano when I was four (and couldn’t reach the pedals), and the cello at
aged nine.

I studied
music at Music College and University and went on to play the cello professionally
in my twenties, but I realised I wasn’t quite good enough to join one of the
top orchestras and I floundered for a while. I did admin jobs, then became a
Psychotherapist which took up another fifteen years. I’ve always enjoyed writing
essays and I had two self-help books published during that time. I also wrote motivational features for Slimming World magazine.

I’d always
thought writing a novel was beyond me and that ‘authors’ were very special and
talented individuals! It was only when I read Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’ in
2008 and started a short story that things developed. I went beyond the
word-count he suggested, because I wanted to know what happened next. That
first novel was therefore not plotted – a real make-it-up-as-you-go-along
situation, but it got me a top crime-writing agent – and everything took off from
there. I never dreamt I’d be published abroad and get to the top of the ebook
charts. In the first six months of this year, I had sales of 30,000 books,
which leaves me totally stunned!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------You can pre-order the ebook HEREComing next on this blog - details of
my Blog Tour and Giveaways – so if you want updates, just follow the blog!
(sign up on the left or go to www.ajwaines.blogspot.co.uk).

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